The ancient Romans certainly did not know about ravioli, but they prepared dishes that could be considered ancestors of the dish. A recipe from the Roman chef Marco Gavio Apicio called “patinamapicianamsic facies” – Apicio’s cake – was already a kind of ravioli.
According to historians, there are several misunderstandings behind the term raviolo. From the interpretation of medieval texts, the term raviolo could represent either a tortello, that is a filling wrapped in the dough, or a dough or an egg-shapedmold, then cooked in broth or in the sauce.
A religiousattention has always been devoted to the preparation of this fresh stuffed egg pasta, whose name changes according to the geographical position in Italy and the different ingredients contained.
In Rome, the ravioli are stuffed with ricotta, spinach, and nutmeg; not containing meat, they are considered a low-fat dish that can also be consumed on Fridays. Often the sauce is the tomato sauce, but you can also eat “in white” with butter and sage leaves.
Italian Ravioli
- Preparation time: 180 minutes
- Ingredients for 4-6 servings
- Difficulty: Average difficulty recipe
- Ingredients
- For fresh pasta for ravioli:
- 2 eggs
- 200 gr or 7 oz of flour
- For the filling of ravioli:
- 200 gr or 7 oz of clean spinach
- 350 gr or 12 oz of ricotta
- 50 gr or 2 oz of parmesan cheese
- 1 spoon of corn flour
- Salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste
- For the dressing:
- Butter to taste
- 4 fresh sage leaves
- Instructions
- Wash the spinach and cook for ten minutes in a pan with little water. When cooked, let them cool before chopping them.
- Prepare the filling by mixing in a bowl the ricotta, spinach, the spoon of corn flour, parmesan, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to obtain a homogeneous mixture.
- Make the pasta. On the pastry board pour the flour creating a hole in the center and pour the eggs that you will have slightly beaten. Knead until the mixture is smooth. Cover with cellophane and let it rest at room temperature for one hour.
- Pull the dough with a dough sheeter to a thickness of 0 3⁄64inch, at the last notch of the dough sheeter.
- Arrange along the pasta two rows of piles of filling as large as a teaspoon. Lightly moisten the edges and center of the dough with a little water and cover with a second sheet of pasta. Crush the dough around the filling to let the air out and to seal the edges well.
- Cut the ravioli to the desired shape. This is an operation that must be done fast, as otherwise the sheets will dry out too much and you will be unable to seal them.
- Boil water for pasta in a pot.
- Melt the butter. When the butter begins to sizzle, add the sage and cook for another two minutes over a very low flame.
- Salt the cooking water to a boil and toss the pasta. Cook the ravioli for a few minutes.
- Pull the ravioli out of the water with a skimmer, place them in the pan with the butter and sage. Sauté a few seconds in the pan. Salt if necessary.
Tips to ensure the success of the dish:
- The ricotta cheese should be left in the fridge inside a sieve and a basin to eliminate as much as possible. The right time for this procedure is from twelve- to twenty-four hours.
- Spinach can also be steamed or boiled in water. The important thing, before using them, is to squeeze them well and eliminate all the water.
